


Blood, Sweat, and Magic: A Rune Mage's Adventures in Noxus

by sandalwoodgrips



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23043907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandalwoodgrips/pseuds/sandalwoodgrips
Summary: Ryze travels to Noxus to investigate whispers of an object of great power surfacing in the Northern Steppes. On the way he meets Swain, Draven, and a certain cantankerous cavalier hopped up on mushroom juice and his pet lizard Skarl.
Kudos: 15
Collections: League of Legends





	Blood, Sweat, and Magic: A Rune Mage's Adventures in Noxus

It had been decades since Ryze walked the lands now called Noxus. It held a certain brutal beauty that Ryze hadn’t thought he would miss. Making his way through the harsh crags and sparse grasslands he was reminded of simpler times. Before the Rune Wars, before there even was a Noxus. But nostalgia wasn’t something the mage could afford, not when he was on a hunt. And until now he hadn’t believed any of the World Runes had settled in Noxus. And yet…

For years Ryze had heard whispers, secrets shared by the small wild creatures, and then folktales told by men, of something strange and powerful living in the Northern Steppes. But other more serious and concrete threats always seemed to rear their ugly heads. It had taken years to find and wrest the Rune of Unmaking from Sul’Got The Ever-Growing, void worm of the Shuriman wastes. Longer still to investigate the Necropolis of Aol Fona in the Shadow Isles and liberate its World Rune. Then he journeyed to the Freljord, to Ixtal, to hundreds of other places before he remembered the steppes of Noxus. Now he had returned.

The rune mage travelled by little known paths, animal trails and ancient roads that had long been forgotten by all but him. He preferred avoiding humanity when possible. They inevitably slowed him down, entangling them in their petty problems, oblivious to the guillotine balanced precariously above their heads. If just one World Rune fell into the wrong hands…

Suddenly the mage felt himself observed. He looked up, and high in the sky above him, circling the blazing afternoon sun, a murder of ravens kept pace with his steady gait. He wasn’t actively trying to hide his presence, but a flock of birds tracking his every move wasn’t a good sign. He still had a ways to travel and this would inevitably lead to the slowdown he feared.

“Speak of the devil,” he said as a raven broke off from the group and landed on a rock beside him, its caw a piercing salutation. Just as he thought, not a good omen.

“Well little raven, do you have something to say? I’m in a hurry.”

The bird cawed once more, this time an unnatural guttural warble, its black beady eyes transformed to a deep glowing crimson. 

“Hello traveler,” came a gruff but intelligent voice from the bird’s beak.

“And with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” the mage asked, sitting cross-legged before the raven.

“I am Grand General Swain. Forgive my flying, prying eyes, but when a mage of such legendary renown is spotted travelling across my lands, I find myself curious as to what it is he’s doing here?”

Ryze put his hand to his chin, weighing his options. He could lie, but a tall tale probably wouldn’t fly much further than a bird with a broken wing. He had a feeling General Swain, if what he heard about the man was anything close to true, could sniff one out a mile away. He also doubted the ravens would give up their surveillance even if Swain was satisfied he was telling the truth. He could use his magic to give them the slip, but that would likely instigate a manhunt, troops combing the countryside, and a much more thorough interrogation of his motivations in a dank dark cell somewhere… No, here the truth served him better.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Ryze. And what am I doing in Noxus, Grand General? I have heard rumblings of a strange creature, it goes by the name of Kled, living in the Northern Steppes. A vicious thing that repels all who invade his territory, despite seemingly insurmountable odds. I’d like to understand how he does what he does.”

The raven’s head tilted to the side, as if considering him with fresh eyes. Ryze could feel the force of will within the creature, and had a thought. 

“I’d like to see this Grand General Swain for myself. Shouldn’t be too hard to follow his trail like he did mine.”

With a few subtle finger movements and a spell spoken under his breath, time seemed to slow, and he released his astral form from his physical body. Now in the spirit realm, he could see a pulsing crimson tether connected to the raven in front of him, no doubt the magical link between the bird and its master. 

Ryze floated, gravity little more than a suggestion in this place, and followed it back to its source, transforming into a comet of arcane energy with the whole of Noxus flitting away beneath him. Suddenly he found himself in an ornately decorated room, large tables covered in maps and parchments took up the majority of the space, while tall bookshelves filled to bursting with leather-bound tomes lined the walls. Noxian banners hung from the exposed ceiling beams, and huge bear pelts covered the stone floor. Everything was impeccably crafted by no doubt the finest craftsmen in the land, but it wasn’t gaudy. It was functional, almost spartan, the space of an efficient man who despised the typical pomp and fanfare of the nobility.

While the room seemed normal enough, Ryze’s finely tuned arcane senses told him something wicked lived here. A malicious presence seemed to swirl about his spirit form, just out of sight. Then he saw a desk, and the man behind the desk, Grand General Swain. 

Swain was old, grizzled, with long gray hair down to his broad shoulders. The lines on his face told stories of a thousand hard decisions and ten thousand sleepless nights. But there was an aura of power about the man that Ryze had never seen before. It was the same crimson as the raven’s eyes, and it pulsed to the same beat. The general held a bird’s skull in his left hand, the tether’s source, and the hand that held it… That was where the darkness was coming from, the evil presence he felt. The general spoke.

“I know of the creature you speak. It inhabits a stretch of land that holds no strategic value, and has proven itself beyond resourceful at repelling invaders. To be honest I have come to develop a grudging respect for the cantankerous thing. I shall allow you to investigate, if only to satisfy my own curiosity.”

The mage concentrated, controlling his body from hundreds of miles away was taxing, but he could use the practice. It had been too long since he had flexed these particular mental muscles. And yet he couldn’t afford to lower his defenses. The malign presence was too powerful to ignore.

“Thank you general,” his body spoke without skipping a beat, “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“But…” Swain said, lifting a finger.

“There’s always a ‘but’” Ryze thought.

“You will have an escort,” Swain said, picking up the bird skull yet again, moving to a table covered by an enormous map of Noxus. Ryze noticed dozens of tiny figures placed on the map’s surface, likely indicating troop movements and garrisons, but then he saw one small blue stone in the hinterlands. 

“That’s me,” he thought.

The general moved his fingers across the map, judging distances, weighing options, and then he smiled.  
“You’ll stop at the city of Galarg, two days north-east of your present location as the raven flies. There a small retinue of soldiers will escort you to the creature’s lands. They will join you on your assessment, and secure anything of value that is found, as it is the property of Noxus.”

Ryze could see there was no use bargaining. This was a man who was used to being obeyed. His word was law, and the best thing Ryze could do now was feign deference and play the rest of the game by ear.  
“As you say general.”

Just as Ryze was about to take his leave and return to his body, a pulse of black rage roused his mental defenses just before dark claws of malice plunged themselves deep into his mind.  
“You do not belong here wizard. These secrets are ours!” the fell thing roared, flinging Ryze’s spirit screaming across the room. This was the presence he felt, some kind of demon, a keeper of secrets wreathed in black smoke. He wasn’t prepared for this kind of fight, and if he were to die here, well he didn’t want to think about what would happen to his body.

“I’m not here for your secrets demon, just a peek at my, and your, gracious host.” Ryze panted, frantically mumbling a spell of binding.

“Haven’t you heard?” The demon tittered, viciously curved claws forming from the amorphous smoke. “Looks, can kill!”

The thing lunged, a blur of inky blackness, but found itself suddenly rooted by a series of eldritch glyphs, and by the time it had looked down to see what restrained it, Ryze was gone. “Another secret I shall keep, until the time is right, rune mage.”

Ryze awoke with a splitting headache hours later, the raven messenger gone. He rubbed his bald pate. “Feels like I’ve gone a few rounds with a couple Ionian warrior monks. Could have gone worse though,” he said with a grunt, lifting himself off the dirt and shrugging his knapsack over his shoulder. “Time to meet my escort.”

Galarg was a supremely Noxian city if Ryze had ever seen one. It was ringed by sheer, unforgiving walls, which were no doubt manned night and day by well-trained soldiers. Most of its buildings weren’t pretty, but they were economical and built to last. Ryze had made it to Galarg in a day, he wanted to meet his escort beforehand if possible, but when he entered the city, he had found it almost vacant. The only people he saw were surly guards spoiling for a fight. What was happening here?

That’s when he smelled it, blood in the air. A thunderous roar soon followed, shaking the city to its foundations. The soldiers nearest Ryze turned their heads towards the mage, sizing him up, no doubt deciding which laws he had broken to warrant his beating and arrest. 

“Ah,” he thought, surmising the cause of the roar and the sullen attitude of the guards in a guess. “The arena. These men are missing all the state-sanctioned murder. I best be on my way.”

And just before the guards could begin beating the oddly-colored outsider for jay walking, disturbing the peace, and looking at them funny, he stepped through a portal and disappeared.

It didn’t take long to find the arena, he just had to follow the roar of the crowd. After navigating through throngs of food cart vendors, knickknack peddlers, street performers, and the thousands hoping to get a glimpse of some poor sap’s viscera decorating the sand, he finally stood outside its massive gates. For any normal human, those gates would have been impregnable without a ticket. Luckily, Ryze was no ordinary man. Bending minds to see what he wanted them to see was one of the oldest tricks he knew, and one of the most valuable. The rune mage was able to breeze past guard posts and checkpoints without so much as a “Hey you there!” and found a seat in the arena close to the action, spinning an added spell of forgetfulness around himself for extra protection.

As he sat back to take it all in, the heat of the sun, the sheer size of the crowd, the bodies being carted away, he realized the contest was nearing its close. The locals were calling for their “just desserts.” Ryze didn’t understand what that meant, but he did know that many men, women, and animals had died in the arena that day. Red splashes dotted the sand, the killing floor resembling some kind of devil cat’s splotched fur.

Near Ryze in the circular pit of the arena stood five posts and a prisoner chained to each, hands above their heads. At the other side of the arena stood a lone gladiator decked in deep green, brown, and gold. He wore a jeweled circlet around his head, his brown hair standing tall above it, seeming to defy gravity. A half mustache hung past his chin, framing a cruel smile, and his eyes held a child-like joy for the inevitable killing that was to come. He flashed his shark’s grin for the crowd, and held his hands to his ears as people shouted his name.

“DRAVEN! DRAVEN! DRAVEN! DRAVEN!"

A host of weapons lay in the sand before him. Apparently, the gladiator would let the crowd choose the tools he would use in what could only be an execution. First he picked up a deadly looking spear with hooked barbs at its tip, and a sharp spike on the butt of the haft. Despite wielding the spear with sublime skill, clearly honed over years in the arena, the crowd roared their disapproval. He dropped the spear and put up his hands, playing with his audience.

He walked further down the line of weapons, a two-handed great sword catching his eye. He hefted it, weaving an intricate web of steel that even a master swordsman would have found difficult to match, but again he was shouted down. So it went with a war hammer, bow and arrow, and sword and great shield, the crowd growing more frenzied with each new weapon. Just when it seemed the masses would tear themselves to pieces in anticipation, Draven picked up a pair of long blades that looked almost like axes, their hafts surrounded completely by a circular guard. 

The crowd exploded into rapturous applause, shooting to their feet and chanting the gladiator’s name as Draven began to spin the long blades around the guard, until they were moving so fast they almost seemed to disappear. 

“Like handheld buzz saws,” Ryze thought, marveling at the barbarous mind twisted enough to invent such weapons.

Draven let both weapons fly into the air, waving to the crowd and bowing, before catching both spinning axe blades behind his back in one of the most astonishing displays of skill and stupidity Ryze had ever seen. “What happens when he gets sand in his eyes and finds himself missing a hand?” the mage thought.

“Citizens of Golarg!” A commanding voice shouted, amplified no doubt by magical means so that the entire arena could hear. The crowded quieted and looked up to a throne at the top of the arena. Ryze imagined it was the mayor, or some powerful general addressing the crowd. “Today’s contests have been bloody and beautiful, and many brave gladiators have given their lives to you and to Noxus on this sand.”

The crowd roared their approval, beating their chests with their fists.

“Now, I am proud to present a rare treat, the cherry on top of our annual gladiatorial games! The Just Desserts!”

Again, thunderous applause shook the arena.

“Before you, chained, stand five thieves, traitors, and deserters. They are to be dealt with by a gladiator who needs no introduction, the Glorious Executioner, DRAVEN!”

Draven bowed to the crowd and smiled his cruel smile, his spinning axes humming a deadly dirge for the accused across the sand. Armed soldiers picked up the weapons that Draven had passed over and moved them in front of the prisoners, unlocking their chains.

“These men are sentenced to death, but in true Noxus spirit, if they can best their executioner and kill him, their crimes will be forgiven. May the strong survive, and the weak receive their just desserts!”

With that, the prisoners rushed forward grabbing whatever weapons they could. None but a swarthy old soldier, who picked up the sword and great shield, looked prepared to take on the grinning gladiator with the spinning blades. That didn’t stop the one who had chosen the spear to charge Draven like a man possessed. Draven’s smile widened as he ran to meet his first victim, casually slipping the spear and delivering a swift boot square to the man’s chest, sending him flying backwards. In the next instant Draven loosed both his axes. They whirled with deadly accuracy, lopping off both the man’s arms before he even hit the sand.

Draven spun around slowly, arms out, drinking in the adoring chants of the crowd before walking over to the man he had just killed and pulling his axes from the sand where his victim’s arms should have been. Three of the other prisoners, armed with a war hammer, the great sword, and two nasty looking daggers, attacked together believing with superior numbers they’d have a chance. It looked to Ryze like the old soldier was waiting for the others to tire the executioner before taking his shot. A better strategy than a blind charge, but Ryze suspected no more likely to succeed.

Draven moved through the trio of attackers like a scythe through wheat. In a matter of moments the sand was littered with a smorgasbord of hacked limbs, heads, blood, and intestines, with Draven standing in the middle, spattered in red and covered in gore. The cries of adulation from the crowd were reaching a fever pitch.

Draven wiped his face before turning to the old soldier and beckoning him forward. The soldier raised his great shield, protecting as much of himself as possible in his approach. Draven laughed, apparently familiar with this maneuver. He began spinning his axes again and hurled one at the shield. It bounced off and shot high into the air and astoundingly, right back to Draven’s waiting hand. Before his opponent had a chance to react, Draven was throwing his axes in a furious flurry, each smashing into the shield, one after the other, ripping into the metal, and returning for another volley. 

The soldier, who had seemed confident during his initial approach, struggled to keep his shield up under the onslaught of spinning axes. His shield arm started to buckle, then he staggered back under a deafening blow, dropping his shield ever so slightly to his chest, but that instant was all Draven needed. The executioner threw both axes horizontally, perfectly in sync, and after a brief and brutal flight, they chopped through the final prisoner’s neck, decapitating him in a rushing gout of crimson blood.

With that final, grisly, incredible death, the crowd erupted. The arena shook with the people’s bloodlust.

“Is this what I’m trying to save?” Ryze thought looking around, repulsed by the barbarism of the moment. And there in the center of the sand, drinking it all in and laughing, Draven, a grinning butcher living within a whirlwind of death. 

Ryze gave the audience in the arena one last look, disappointed but not surprised. He would save them, even if they didn’t deserve it.

“You must be joking,” Ryze said, looking over his escort as the party mounted a host of sturdy Noxian steeds.

“No sir Mr. Ryze. Or is it just Ryze? Maybe Sir Ryze? Or… Anyway this is your escort, courtesy of Grand General Swain,” a peppy young Noxian herald named Reva said, waving her hand towards a dozen soldiers and three gladiators, one of them, of course, was Draven.

“Just my luck.” Ryze said under his breath. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Hey Reba!” Draven yelled.

“Yes Mr. Draven sir?!” The excited young lady shouted, spinning to catch the handsome gladiator’s eye.

“What are we doing with blue boy here? I’m owed a little rest and relaxation after that stunning performance I put on yesterday.”

“Absolutely sir and if it were up to me I’d send you off right this second, but nope Grand General Swain wanted you to accompany Mr. Ryze on his quest. Also, it’s Reva, not Reba.”

Draven’s eyebrow raised slightly. “A quest? I don’t do quests. I do killing. Will there be killing blue boy?”

Ryze turned to Draven, putting on his best condescending look. “Only if absolutely necessary.”

Draven smiled, twirling his mustache. “Good, because for me, killing’s always absolutely necessary.”

While their destination was only a couple days ride, with Galarg so near to Noxus’ northern border, Draven did his best to make the trip unbearable. Initially the soldiers were starstruck. Reva was pining over the executioner, and Ryze was miserable. The two other gladiators that accompanied them seemed to be immune to Draven’s inane arrogance and grandstanding. If Ryze had to listen to one more of his ludicrously violent retellings of his favorite executions, he was going to teleport the braggart to the deepest jungles of Ixtal. Let him use those stupid axes on swarms of tiny, ravenous mosquitos and live to tell the tale. The rune mage couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

“Wasn’t sure if you could smile Mr. Ryze,” piped Reva, appearing at his side out of nowhere.

“Just thinking about sending someone on a well-deserved vacation” he replied, his smile shrinking to the slightest of grins.

“You know, me and my family used to travel to some hot springs in the mountains outside our village. We would swim and sword fight and…”

Ryze let the excitable herald talk, nodding and smiling at what he hoped were appropriate moments. Draven was the worst, but Reva wasn’t far behind. Whether it was nervousness or just a criminally chatty disposition, she hadn’t stopped talking since they had set out the day prior. She had vocally accosted the soldiers until they had stopped listening, the gladiators, even the horses seemed to avoid her lest they get ensnared in a conversation about the time her little brother fell down the village well. Ryze suspected Reva’s horse, the poor brute, would throw himself down a well if given half a chance. The rune mage lifted his eyes to the setting sun and prayed for a quick return to the quiet solitude of his wanderings. That’s when Reva began to list her favorite romance novels. 

They set up camp about half a days walk from the stretch of craggy cliffs and withered grasslands Ryze had travelled all this way to see. It was dark, and the soldiers were doling out dinner, a spartan affair consisting of strips of dried meat, a hunk of stale bread, and some vegetable stew for softening up said stale bread to make it edible. Ryze’d had worse meals on the road. Cold scorpion and cactus juice came to mind. He shivered at the memory.

The twelve of them were scattered around the fire, swapping stories. At least, they were trying. Any time anyone finished, or paused a bit too long for dramatic effect, Draven would find a way to talk about one of his incredibly masculine exploits, either in the arena, on the battlefield, or beneath the sheets. Ryze could tell the entire party was getting tired of it. A desperate soldier called out just as Draven began to recount the time he had satisfied seven maidens after slaying a hundred men on the battlefield.

“Mage, surely you have a tale to tell from your journeys?”

Ryze glanced at the crowd around him. Some were pleading with their eyes, others had resigned themselves to their fate, and Draven was still talking as if nothing had happened. He smiled to himself. “Maybe there’s hope for humanity yet,” he thought.

“I could spare a story or two.”

What followed was some of the most incredible storytelling any of the Noxians had ever heard, and they would repeat it to as many people as would listen for years to come. Ryze used his magics to create dragon’s flame, the sickly green lights of the Shadow Isles, and more as he held the crowd rapt within his story’s spell. Draven was the only one who seemed unimpressed, and when Ryze finished, the executioner only had one thing to say. “Yeah but where were the naked maidens?”

Afterwards, Ryze lay beneath the open sky, counting the stars and tracing constellations. He didn’t know what tomorrow would hold, but he would be ready. And while the mage was often right about many things, in this, he was very, very wrong.

The comforting and steady clop clop of the horses’ hooves quieted as they moved off the main road and onto the long grass of the steppes. The huge fields appeared a sea of green gray as the tall blades blew softly in the wind. Tall rocky outcroppings poked out from beneath the foliage, and bigger hills rose high in the distance, ochre stone giving off a ruddy glow in the morning light. Small copses of trees here and there were a reminder that the steppes were indeed land, and not some great inland ocean. 

Ryze and the troop were quiet, a sense of foreboding hung over the hunting party. Even Draven and Reva, the chief vocal offenders, found reasons to keep their mouths shut. The rune mage led them, his finely tuned arcane senses acting as a compass as they navigated the sea of blades. Two hours after they had left the road they passed a poorly made sign that read “NO TRASPASN.” Ryze sat tall astride his horse, bemused at the effort put into the shoddy thing. 

“We’re getting close. Everyone be on your guard.” He said, looking back over his escort.

About half an hour later they passed another sign, this one decorated with what looked like human bones that read “CAN’T READD?!” The horses tossed their heads and whinnied at the sight, which surprised Ryze. These weren’t your run of the mill work horses. The Grand General had sent fine Noxian war horses, bred and born for battle. That they were nervous meant they were very close to their quarry. 

The group came to a clearing beneath a copse of trees and dismounted, taking shelter from the sun and breaking out their lunch, more of the same dried meat and inedible bread. Draven, much to Ryze’s chagrin, seemed to have found his voice again.

“What are we doing out here in the ass-end of nowhere Reba? I’ve killed what? Maybe 20 birds on the wing since we started on this stupid trip, nothing to even get the blood up.”

“21 birds exactly sir, you made me fetch your axes after each successful kill.” Reva replied, a strained smile on her face.

“Look all I’m saying is, if I don’t get to kill someone soon, I’m going home to my silk sheets and adoring fans. Swain can find someone else to search for creepy critters in the boondocks.”

Ryze was surveying the steppes. He felt something he couldn’t quite explain, not the same terrible vibrations of a World Rune but something very much like it. Then he noticed a tiny top hat, flanked by two large fluffy ears, poke its way through the stalks and slowly move towards their camp like some strange dorsal fin. But before he could laugh at the sight a loud, gnarly, unhinged-sounding voice yelled from the tall grass.  
“Halt right there!” the hat and ears shouted, a bit of uncouth twang accenting each word. “Y’all are trespassin and I don’t take kindly to your kind round here!”

The escort were all standing now, their lunches forgotten, trying to get sight of the voice from the hat. 

“Our kind?” Reva cautiously asked the disembodied voice.

“Tresspassers!” It yelled back, clearly angry that it needed to clarify.

Then, in one of the oddest moments of Ryze’s life, and he had watched a World Rune turn an entire charging cavalry line inside out, a small humanoid rodent, wearing what looked like an ancient Noxian army uniform and a top hat, rose slowly above the grass. The thing, which Ryze had no doubt was the infamous Kled, looked like a short, squat, and very angry weasel. It couldn’t have been more than two feet tall, with sharp teeth, a dirty furry face, and a deep scar running down through its right eye. Drool frothed from its open mouth and it held what could only be an ancient blunderbuss, but made specifically for Kled’s tiny hands. Slung over its back was a wicked looking miniature halberd. 

Kled seemed to be sailing across the grass towards their clearing. Ryze and the party all backed away as a silly looking lizard burst through the outer edges of the grass, its tongue lolling from its head. The thing was all eyes and ears, green and yellow scales covering its oddly shaped body. It looked as if a child had tried to draw a lizard, but then was inspired to mash elements of an elephant, owl, and dog onto the same body. It stood roughly four feet tall, upright and on two legs, with huge leathery earflaps that hung flat down its long neck. Its eyes were huge and vacant, taking in everything but processing nothing, and its tongue hung from its open mouth like a dog’s. Kled stood atop it like a demented hedge knight on his deranged steed.

Reva jumped into action, the rest of the party still attempting to wrap their minds around the incredibly odd duo. She fished a scroll from her saddlebag and approached the small creature, unfurling it and standing to attention, saluting the strange furball and his lizard.

“Major Kled sir, Majestor of the 13th March, Slayer of Doran Dobrak, Lord of the Dance, and Black Belt of the Deadly Asp Dojo I presume?”

The furry humanoid’s big ears perked up and it raised an eyebrow.

“Been a long time since someone used my full official title… Ok peaches, you’ve got one minute to say your peace before I start chopping y’all up into itty pieces on account of y’all trespassing and all.”

Reva saluted again, more forcefully this time, konking herself in the head a bit. “Yes sir! Grand General Swain of Noxus has drafted you back into active duty. You are to give up the protection of the Northern Steppes and return to Noxus for reassignment and a promotion for years of loyal service.” She re-rolled her scroll and looked stared stone-faced at the creature, who returned her stare with an insane intensity, his one good eye squinting.

Then, with a flourish, he plopped to the ground next to his lizard and started to wax his blunderbuss, waving a dismissive hand.

“Sorry to disappoint Grand Poobah McBain, but I was given this post by Royal Praetor Wilhelm Harringbone III after the Tootknocker Offensive in 86. Lost a lotta of good men that day… Anyway the posting to protect the land was for perpetooty or something or other and I aint gonna let anyone smirch his memory so y’all can go on back and tell Gain Train to suck eggs.”

Reva looked back at Ryze, clearly more confused than she had ever been in her short life. Ryze shrugged. As far as he knew, Noxus had never used the honorific of Royal Praetor, nor had there been anyone in power named Harringbone, or a Tootknocker Offensive. Granted, his knowledge of Noxian military history was lacking. Swain hadn’t said anything about this being a recruitment mission, but maybe this was a chance to learn more about the strange creature and discover what kind of magic it was hiding.

“Why did he assign you to protect this place Major Kled?” Ryze asked. “It’s uncontested land, far from the nearest town or village.”

“Boy you got elnuk dung in your ears?”

Ryze was caught by surprise, never having been accused of hanging elnuk dung in his ears before. 

“No…”

“Well you sure? Because I already said, he assigned me to protect the land to protect the land. Nothing simpler.”

Ryze turned to Reva and it was her turn to shrug.

“I’m gonna chop you all into bits and feed you to Skarl now,” Kled said, patting the head of his vacant-eyed lizard mount and drawing his grisly looking halberd.  
The lizard’s tongue snapped back up into its mouth and it let out a string of clicks and whistles.

Kled looked up at Skarl, cupping a small furred hand over his mouth. “Well shoot Skarl I know youse vegetarian but we gotta put the fear of blood, guts, and dismemberment into these innerlopers somehow!”  
It was at this point, with Kled and Skarl engaged in a shouting and clicking/whistling match at the edge of the clearing, that Draven’s patience shriveled up and died.

“Now listen here furball, General Swain wants you back in the army and the sooner you get that through your rabies-addled brain the better!”

Both Kled and his Skarl tilted their heads, noticing Draven for the first time.

“We’ll kill him first. The one with the stupid mustache” Kled yell-whispered to his lizard, who nodded enthusiastically, though Ryze wasn’t sure it was in agreement, or to anything at all. 

Thunderclouds rolled across Draven’s face and in a flash he had an axe spinning in his hand. 

“That’s it! You’re coming with us as a tiny, tick-infested throw rug and some boots!” he yelled, hurling his axe with uncanny speed and accuracy.

Ryze watched with dread as he realized he wouldn’t be able to stop the blade from chopping into Kled’s furry body. The little creature was going to die, and outside of being cranky, he hadn’t done anything to deserve such an ignominious demise.

But at the last second, whether by instinct, experience, or sheer dumb luck, Skarl made a slight turn, taking the throwing axe directly to the forehead with a metallic sounding clang. Instead of splitting the creature’s head open like a ripe melon, the axe bounced off as if it were the arena prisoner’s great shield, right into Draven’s waiting hand.

Kled looked at Skarl, who seemed none worse the wear for taking such a powerful strike directly to the noggin. 

“You done did it now! Drakalops are invincible! Aint nothing can hurt my girl Skarl here,” he said patting her side, just as the beast began to sway precariously towards him. “Go’an sic im… whoa now, timber!” Kled yelled as Skarl collapsed at his feet.

Draven smirked. “Alright you two, go grab that furry freak by his scruff, we’ll toss him in one of the food bags, and be on our way."

Ryze hesitated, watching Kled cradle his lizard’s head between his tiny arms. Kled had been protecting this swath of land for years. If all it took was someone tossing an axe at his pet dracalops, he would have been dead long ago.

“Wait you two, something isn’t right about this,” he said, gesturing for the men to stop.

“What’s not right is the Glorious Executioner acting as animal control in the ass-end of nowhere while Miss Motor Mouth asks an overgrown prairie rat to join the army!” Draven roared. “Get your asses over there or you’ll soon find a pair of axes lovingly planted between your cheeks,” he finshed with a growl.

The two men, much more motivated, still approached Kled cautiously, swords and shields drawn. One of them stepped on a tree branch and Kled’s ears pricked up at the snap of dry wood. He stood up, gently laying Skarl’s head to rest and wiped his nose with his forearm. Then in a blur almost too fast to see, he brought the blunderbuss up and fired, sending two blasts of buckshot straight through the closest soldier’s shield and into his chest. The man was dead before he knew what hit him. 

As the other soldier turned to look at his fallen compatriot, Kled let out a feral war cry and took a surprisingly far leap for his tiny body, and sunk his grisly halberd right into the soldier’s skull. Ryze could hardly believe it, Kled had killed two Noxian soldiers in the span of five seconds, and he was charging towards the rest with murder in his eyes.

Kled ran right past Ryze and Reva spewing obscenities and shaking his freshly blooded halberd above his head, apparently only interested in more sporting prey. A host of potent offensive magics flitted through Ryze’s mind, but using any of them would endanger the Noxians in such close proximity. Then Kled was among the soldiers, swinging his halberd with reckless abandon, chopping through unarmored shins, stabbing at exposed flesh, and screaming at the top of his lungs. Draven couldn’t get a clean shot with his axes, and the horses were all spooked by the sudden explosion of noise. One of the gladiators caught a hoof to the head in the great beasts’ panic and went down like a sack of wet flour.

Despite the surprise attack by the miniature monster, the Noxians were no strangers to battle. They quickly formed up, lowered their shields to protect their waists on downward, and used their superior height and range to beat back Kled’s chaotic swipes and slashes. And yet despite that, he still managed to cut down another soldier, his life blood seeping into the steppes. 

Finally, with the Noxian numbers thinned, Draven was able to throw his axes with little concern for friendly fire, not that friendly fire ever really bothered him, but hitting his mark was a point of pride and he didn’t want any of the bumbling grunts to throw off his aim. The executioner threw an axe towards Kled with uncanny speed, the sound of its spin a death knell for any in its path, but Kled barely gave it half a glance before hauling back his halberd and unleashing a mighty swing, hitting the spinning axe with such force that it ricocheted into the remaining gladiator’s chest. Death took her with a look of surprise still etched on her face.  
The ferocity of Kled’s swing spun him around so hard that that he lost his balance and fell hard on his little butt, the ridiculous top hat falling in front of his eyes. The remaining soldiers seized on the moment and when Kled pushed his hat up, he found four swords pointed at his head. He dropped his halberd to the ground, kicked it like a child, and stuck up his hands in defeat.

“Hardly a fair fight,” he grumbled.

The rune mage had never seen a battle quite like that before. And it wasn’t magic that gave Kled the edge over the Noxians, but sheer grit and a healthy dose of insanity. They had underestimated him because of his unassuming size and cute-ish exterior, and now five of their party lay dead. Draven had already pulled his axe from the body of the dead gladiator and was walking towards the downed drakalops, the whine of his spinning axes grating in Ryze’s ears.

“You murdered five good Noxians just now you overgrown rabbit,” the executioner said quietly, standing above the drakalops. “I didn’t know them, didn’t care much for them, but they were my brothers and sisters in battle all the same. It’s for them, and if I’m being honest me too, that I’m going to hack this thing to pieces while you watch!”

Ryze stepped towards the executioner, readying a spell of binding. He was not about to let this murderer kill an innocent creature in front of him. “Slow your axes Draven, leave the lizard alone.”

Draven, barely contained fury contorting his features, turned to Ryze with one spinning axe raised, stopping it in an instant so the blade was level with Ryze’s neck. “Take one more step blue boy and you’ll regret it. You think I didn’t notice you doing fuck-all to help us just now? You watched those men get butchered and now you’re telling me not to kill that midget’s dumb beast?”

As the glorious executioner spoke, his rage grew, and Ryze noticed an aura begin to pulse from the center of Draven’s being. “I am Noxus’ Glorious Executioner!” It was red and raw. “I will not be beaten by a giant rabbit and his lizard!” An untamed flame consumed Draven from head to toe. “I am death and death is me, and I will not be denied!” And Ryze was the only one who could see it. 

“There’s magic in this arrogant fool,” Ryze thought, his mind racing as Draven’s anger grew. “It lays deep and dormant. I bet he uses it without even realizing it. It’s how he can wield such ridiculously suicidal weapons, why he’s such an impeccable marksman.”

But Ryze wasn’t the only one who saw Draven’s inner power spring to life, Kled could see it too. He knew that Skarl could survive cannon blasts at close range, he’d seen swords break on her tough hide, but he had never seen her get hit by a “gol’ dang magical whirling death axe” from a few feet away. Draven turned back to the lizard, arms raised high with both axes spinning so fast their blades were invisible, distorting the very air around them, and churning up a windstorm that buffeted Ryze, Reva, and everyone else in the clearing. Then, just as he was about to unleash whirling certain death on the drakalops, two things happened. 

First, the rune mage attempted to cast an imprisonment spell on Draven but Reva, her loyalty to Noxus greater than he had realized, rammed into him. “Arrogance knows many masters,” he though as he and Reva tumbled to the ground. Second, somewhere in Kled’s mushroom juice-spoiled brain he realized Skarl might not survive the coming strike, and with the soldiers distracted, the Major quickly snaked his hand into his pocket and whipped out a tiny glowing stone about the size of his palm. He caught Ryze’s eye as he lifted it into the air, noting the look of surprise and fear with relish, and screamed “SKARRRRRRLLLLLLLLL!”  
The glowing purple stone fizzled with a blip of arcane electricity. The executioners face was a smiling death mask, his clothes, hair, and mustache, and the tall grass around him caught in a wild ripping turbulence.  
“And no one makes fun of my mustache!”

Then, seemingly out of thin air, another Skarl’s head popped out of the tall grass right at the edge of the clearing near Draven’s feet. This startled the would be drakalops killer so much that he stumbled backwards, accidentally launching both axes straight into the air with a WOOSH!

At the other side of the clearing Ryze couldn’t believe what he had just seen. “Did Kled just use a World Rune? No it was too small… But the pulse felt the same, the vibration similar, was it… No…” The mage thought, his horror mounting. “It’s not possible. Did he just use a fragment of a World Rune?” As the rune mage picked himself up off the ground, he watched drakalops heads pop up from the tall grass around him, one after the other, until there were about 30 Skarls swiveling their heads across the steppes. They all appeared to be exact duplicates of Kled’s unconscious mount, who was just now stirring, and seemed just as confused as everyone else about their sudden materialization. They were all looking for something, or someone.

The cantankerous cavalier, once again taking advantage of the soldiers’ confusion, punched the nearest one in the groin and took off across the clearing away from the new Skarls. “What you waitin for girls? Chrimas? We’re beating a tactical retreat ASAP!” he yelled as his little legs carried him with surprising speed out of the clearing and into the tall grass. The lizards all turned their heads as one, finally having found what they were looking for, and like a reptilian tidal wave, came sprinting towards Draven, Ryze, Reva, and the remaining soldiers.

Reva grabbed Ryze by the shoulders and shook him violently as the herd of speeding lizards grew closer.

“Look Mr. Ryze I’m sorry about earlier, but you need to save me! I don’t want to be killed by a stampede of Skarls!” she yelled, tears in her eyes.

“This is what I get for getting involved with humans,” he sighed as he concentrated. With a simple finger motion, domes of purple blue energy crackled to life around the humans in the clearing. 

At the sight of the newly erected magical barriers, the wave of lizards seemed to break apart, with some Skarls balking and splitting off from the main group, clearly spooked by the pulsing energy of Ryze’s sorcery. The rest were either too stupid, or had built up too much momentum, to stop and crashed into the copse of trees and magical barriers surrounding Ryze and the rest with reckless abandon. Some had rolled themselves into lizardy balls and bounced off unharmed, others smacked into the magic walls face first, their tongues leaving little trails of spit as they slid down the sorcerous surfaces.

The remaining Skarls, some rolling, some sprinting awkwardly on their hind legs, followed the tiny top hat making its way across the steppes. Kled rose above the grass, somehow keeping his balance on a rolling Skarl, and sped off towards the ochre cliffs in the distance. 

Ryze and the Noxians spent the afternoon burying their dead and getting ready to ride back to Galarg to request reinforcements. Draven didn’t help with any of the preparations, preferring to sulk alone in the tall grass and look for his axes. The rune mage, as he helped, knew that he wouldn’t be returning with the soldiers, and they wouldn’t remember what had happened here. It was a simple thing to cast a memory wipe spell, but he had to be careful and not overdo it. Complex memory wipes had a tendency to lose their potency as time went on and/or turn the intended target into a babbling vegetable. None of the soldiers deserved that. “Except Draven,” he thought.

“Everyone gather round, I have something to show you all,” the rune mage said, wiping his brow. Digging graves in the heat, in such unforgiving soil, was no easy feat and everyone was tired and frustrated. “Even you executioner. I have some magic to ease your pains.”

The Noxians didn’t so much walk as they did limp, slog, and lumber towards Ryze, as he deftly spun five blue orbs of magical energy from the air. Their exhaustion would help the spell take root more easily, which was good because Ryze had no time to waste. He finished his spell, and held out his hand, the five blue orbs spinning gently above his palm. “I want to thank you for your courage and your sacrifice today. What we faced here was the stuff of legends. Know that I will carry this memory, and honor your fallen, until my dying breath.”

And with that, the sorcerer softly blew onto the orbs in his palm and they shot as if from a sling into the foreheads of the soldiers, herald, and executioner, each slumping to the ground in a deep slumber. He cautiously moved each of them into more comfortable positions, placing small piles of steppe grass under the heads. Except for Draven, who he bent into odd angles and gathered up the most uneven and sharpest gravel he could find for the executioner’s pillow. Then he stuck a long blade of grass up each of the Draven’s nostrils just because he thought it would be funny. And it was. Where did he hear that saying, from some Ionian hermit maybe, “You don’t stop laughing because you grow older, you grow older because you stop laughing.” That sounded right, Ryze thought, smirking as he stepped through a portal and disappeared, leaving only the sound of snoring in his wake. The sound of snoring, and a single raven made of shadows.

Ryze stepped out of his portal in front of the ochre cliffs that had seemed leagues away mere moments before. It was time to end this, and he was going to pry that shattered piece of World Rune from Kled’s dead hands if he had to. The gods above knew he had done it before. Now that he had seen the stone, felt its power, his acute arcane senses were able to pinpoint its energies, and he felt strong emanations coming from a deep thicket set amongst the cliffs, a spot that would be difficult to assail by any attacker, and provided an excellent vantage of the steppes for miles. That was where he would find Kled and Skarl, he was sure of it.  
Unwilling to take any more chances, he cast Trouviel’s Steps (better known as Ghost), which increased his movement speed and made him intangible. No doubt Kled, crazy and paranoid as he was, had set booby traps on the path to his lair. Ryze couldn’t afford to make his way slowly up into the cliffs disarming them, and he didn’t want to waste time astral projecting, sniffing the traps out and trying to remember where they were on his ascent. No, this was the fastest way, and with his direction firmly in mind, he set off at a sprint.

He was immediately glad Ghost made him intangible, as the trail he found was littered with all manner of rusted bear traps, noxious mushroom bombs, and a host of other outdated, but no less efficient, instruments of death. Bones of all kinds littered the ground around the traps, but Ryze didn’t slow down, if anything he pushed his body ever faster, eventually coming to a wall of brush high up in the cliffs. His ethereal body pushed through the branches and brambles until he came to a large cave hidden deep within the cliffside, and it was there he felt a magical pulse of energy render his intangibility useless.  
Ryze quickly activated his most potent defensive spells, eyes searching for a threat, only to find Kled casually tossing mushrooms into Skarl’s smiling maw.

“I ken who you are ya blue buffoon, and I know what yur here for,” Kled said, looking at Ryze with a devilish grin. “This little stone eh?” The small mammal in Noxus army fatigues lifted up the chipped piece of a World Rune in his right paw, shaking it tauntingly at the sorcerer. “Why should I give it up?”

Ryze had expected blunderbuss shrapnel and sharp pointy sticks to greet him upon entering Kled’s inner sanctum. Things were looking up. He took in his surrounding before lowering his defenses. The cave was spacious, about the size of a small one-story home, which was massive for a creature who only stood two feet tall. The walls were made of rough brown stone, and numerous weapons from different ages of man hung from the rock, all within easy grabbing distance for the tiny mammal.

There was a makeshift bed made from steppe grass and old human clothes in a corner next to a small sputtering fire. Cracks in the ceiling let in light, but also allowed the smoke to escape, keeping the cave dry and clear. Ryze shuddered upon looking a little closer at Kled’s bed. He couldn’t imagine Kled having washed any of those old garments before sleeping on them, and some were still sporting crimson stains.

“You’ve been around a long time Kled, if the stories about you are true. Maybe even long enough to remember when the World Runes nearly split the planet apart. I have hidden others where no one will find them, and the same goes for the piece you possess. I will not let another Rune War send this world spiraling into chaos and death.” Ryze said, hands across his chest.

“I don’t need no lecture Ryze. Us yordles been around the block a few times and seen what y’all dummies get up to with too much power.”

“A yordle? That explains how he was able to hide the stone’s power from me.” Ryze thought.

“I don’t like giving up what’s mine, but this time I’m thinkin’ ya might be right. BUT DON’T YOU GO ROUND TELLING PEOPLE I SAID THAT!” the martial yorle yelled, pointing his halberd at Ryze’s face.

Kled tossed the World Rune shard to Ryze but his throw was intentionally too short. Ryze leapt and skidded across the uneven and rocky cave floor on his chest and caught the magical jewel inches from the floor. He stood up and dusted himself off to the sound of Kled and Skarl’s laughter. 

“How did you come by a thing of such power,?” Ryze probed. “Where is the rest of this rune?”

Kled screwed up his good eye and gave Ryze a look that would have spoiled milk. 

“Found it in these here plains, but can’t quite remember when or where. I blame the mushroom juice. Wasn’t long after I met this idiot here.” Kled said, tossing another mushroom to Skarl. “Decided to finally put down some roots after all them years of wandering. We like it here, not a lot of people, even less looking for pieces of a broken World Rune.” Skarl chirped in agreement.

The rune mage had much to think about. He didn’t even know World Runes could be broken, and he didn’t want to meet whoever, or whatever, had cracked the one in his palm.

“And you couldn’t find any other pieces besides this one?”

“Narp. Probably fer the best. I’m a simple yordle, just need my lizard and a blade, but even that bauble there whispers bad juju that makes me want to murder more than usual.” He held up a jug of foul smelling liquid and shook it, taking a huge gulp. “Thank the gods for this here mushroom juice!”

“And what exactly does it do?”

“The mushroom juice?” Kled asked, scarching his head? “It gets you drunk!”

“No… No the rune.” 

“Welp, you saw, it cooks up doubles! Not sure how, or why, but it’s sure as hell useful when this coward runs off to who knows where in the middle of a gol’ darn dust up,” Kled responded, playfully punching Skarl in the chin. “They go poof pretty quick, and you can’t make an army of whatever ya double, but it can help out in a pinch, as you saw.”  
“Indeed…”

“And with that, it’s about time you were moseying on. Go on now, git. You’ve over stayed your welcome and Skarl wants you gone…”

While the irritable yordle had been describing the rune’s powers, Skarl wandered over and started to rub herself against Ryze’s leg, cooing softly. Ryze was scratching behind her ears.  
“Why you backstabbing low life good fer nothing Judas lizard!”

As Kled’s disposition soured, likely aided by the jugs of mushroom juice he’d been drinking, Ryze felt it best to leave post haste. Especially since Kled, advancing menacingly, was loading his blunderbuss with god knows what kind of ammunition. Probably nothing that could harm him with his defenses up, but why take the chance? 

“It’s not enough you gotta take my stone but now yer trying to steal my lizard too? Over my ded body!” Kled screamed before firing. The buckshot bounced off Skarl’s iron hide and sailed harmlessly past where Ryze had been standing only moments before. 

The rune mage stepped out of a portal and onto the vast plains beneath Kled’s cliffs, leaving the angry yordle and his pet lizard behind. The sun was setting, painting the tall grass a deep crimson, and there was a chill in the air. He looked at the small stone in his hand, its power dormant now, and felt a deep sense of dread. How many other World Runes had been shattered? As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, now he needed to track down broken shards? The sorcerer shook his head. Who would have guessed a creature like Kled would make the most responsible steward for a World Rune? Even after all these centuries, he still had so much to learn. So much to learn, and still so many runes to hunt down. And with that, Ryze stepped through another portal and was gone.


End file.
